Paul Garner on Long Covid and ME/CFS - BMJ articles and other media.

[Felis Catus]

"I have learnt so much. I became well by listening to someone who had recovered from ME/CFS. I knew the virus had gone."

PG

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

The Bible

 

[Peter T]

"I fulfilled the Canadian Consensus Criteria for CFS/ME. I was referred by my doctor to a CFS/ME specialist. The ME community sent me unsolicited emails about mast cell deactivation, biological causes of my illness, and told me to rest. Indeed, one person told me that this illness was actually “short haul”-and to prepare myself for an illness that might last the rest of my life."

"I have learnt so much. I became well by listening to someone who had recovered from ME/CFS. I knew the virus had gone."

PG

It is a bit disingenuous to say the ‘ME community sent me unsolicited emails’. I understand he very publicly conducted his Covid and post Covid saga on line and invited information/support from ‘the ME community’.

At the time, I felt people were getting over excited by the idea of a medical professor who wanted to know more about the overlap between ME and Long Covid and who seemed to understand the concept of PEM. However he was definitely engaging with the ME/CFS community until his road to Damascus experience via the Norwegian phone call, when he seem to go from welcoming the attention from the ME/CFS community to denigrating those who fail to recover and actively engaging with the BPS coterie who assert anyone can recover if they just want to enough and believe enough in the power of exercise.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Woof

 

[MrMagoo]

It is a bit disingenuous to say the ‘ME community sent me unsolicited emails’. I understand he very publicly conducted his Covid and post Covid saga on line and invited information/support from ‘the ME community’.

At the time, I felt people were getting over excited by the idea of a medical professor who wanted to know more about the overlap between ME and Long Covid and who seemed to understand the concept of PEM. However he was definitely engaging with the ME/CFS community until his road to Damascus experience via the Norwegian phone call, when he seem to go from welcoming the attention from the ME/CFS community to denigrating those who fail to recover and actively engaging with the BPS coterie who assert anyone can recover if they just want to enough and believe enough in the power of exercise.

People send public figures unsolicited emails. And tweets. It’s the way of the world.
I myself receive a number of unsolicited emails from Nigerian princes, various special offer jackpots and sometimes Local Women who want to chat (apparently).
He was posting a lot about how the ME community had been ignored and talking with Charles Shepherd.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Interesting to see the definition of disingenuous: not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

I know what @Peter T meant but maybe it wasn't this? Sometimes people really believe what they woof, despite knowing even less than they imply?

 

[MrMagoo]

I think you could say
Underhand
Insincere
Obtuse

I feel it’s disingenuous though, truly, because he was speaking for, and to, the ME community around that time so to present it as somehow receiving “unsolicited” advice/emails is disingenuous.

Receiving unsolicited emails would suggest that they were unexpected, unwanted, unanticipated. And I think it’s worded that way because he has, in hindsight, chosen to frame it as a problem/unwanted/unexpected/unanticipated.

It “could” be read and understood as him being a private citizen who, for reasons unknown, became the victim of unwanted attentions. This is problematic because “some” people say the ME community love targeting and harassing the good Drs, medics and researchers. Hmm.

It certainly does not read as a foreseeable consequence of being all over the media talking about not recovering from Covid, tweeting and blogging about ME and having 1-1 personal advice from Charles Shepherd.

Frankly as a woman on the internet I could tweet something about the cat and be subject to days of unsolicited death and grape threats, but that’s the internet for ya, full of people who want to say things.

 

[JellyBabyKid]

for decades Drs had only sneered at patients who told them they did meditation or yoga etc, and had done for decades.

Really? I did not know this.
But, now they have found it, it seems meditation,(and/or yoga and breathwork and always exercise) is the cure for everything?

 

[MrMagoo]

Really? I did not know this.
But, now they have found it, it seems meditation,(and/or yoga and breathwork and always exercise) is the cure for everything?

Oh yeah, like back in the days where being a vegetarian was suspicious and not normal, church halls didn't allow yoga and yogurt was only from the health food store.
Around 2011 I reached the end of the line with NHS where the last thing they could recommend was a referral to a counsellor who had a very unusual but successful new method. It was …..mindfulness. Crazy to think there was a time when it wasn’t being shoved at us left, right and centre.

 

[JellyBabyKid]

Oh yeah, like back in the days where being a vegetarian was suspicious and not normal, church halls didn't allow yoga and yogurt was only from the health food store.
Around 2011 I reached the end of the line with NHS where the last thing they could recommend was a referral to a counsellor who had a very unusual but successful new method. It was …..mindfulness. Crazy to think there was a time when it wasn’t being shoved at us left, right and centre.

Thanks for the explanation.

My usually lovely GP recently said "would you like an art class?" Right after I had been complaining about not being able to get out of the house except for occasional appointments, which wiped me out. Apparently art therapy is the new answer to mental health issues of any kind.

I was also offered a course on mindfulness in 2011.
Been practicing for 15 years. Still sick.

 

[Suffolkres]

Don't know... I've only read the Bible. Still can't feed thousands of people with a few fish and loaves of bread.

L

Thanks for the explanation.

My usually lovely GP recently said "would you like an art class?" Right after I had been complaining about not being able to get out of the house except for occasional appointments, which wiped me out. Apparently art therapy is the new answer to mental health issues of any kind.

I was also offered a course on mindfulness in 2011.
Been practicing for 15 years. Still sick.

Social Prescribing.....
Answers to and for everything......

 

[Sean]

Social Prescribing - The perfect excuse for medicine and governments to stop investigating and caring.

 

[Ash]

Some Commenters on the You tube Vid seem to think Paul Garner is "An Expert"!

But he isn't! Garner is retired from the NHS, He does not have not have any kind of medical practice or clinic, so he does not see LC or ME patients.
Garner does not do LC or ME research.

So how can he be described as an expert [in Long Covid or ME]? The only thing he is an expert in is his own experience, in which he worryingly confused a common natural recovery from time limited post viral fatigue - confused that with a spectacular recovery from LC/ME (recovery, which according to him, he created only by his own mind.)



Jeez - Am I sick to the back teeth of Born Again, Evangelical, Bandwagon Jumping Doctors -
After decades of them Sneering at patients who did meditation/mindfulness, or yoga etc -

Now the Medical Profession (well not all, but too many of 'em), now think They, Themselves, and Only Them, discovered meditation (mindfulness), yoga, NLP, visualisation, diverse mind methods etc etc.
And that it is their duty to introduce the clueless, meditation/yoga ignorant, mind method-resistant idiot patients to all of that - to bring the 'sceptical' patients 'To the Light'.

Yet for decades Drs had only sneered at patients who told them they did meditation or yoga etc, and had done for decades.

Umm.....[Edit: Yup.]

 

[Lou B Lou]

Umm.....

Of course 'prescribing' a mindfulness course is another means for Drs to pass the patient along/pass the buck, away from them, confident that they have 'done something'.

 

[Lou B Lou]

Some Commenters on the You tube Vid seem to think Paul Garner is "An Expert"!

But he isn't! Garner is retired from the NHS, He does not have not have any kind of medical practice or clinic, so he does not see LC or ME patients.
Garner does not do LC or ME research.

So how can he be described as an expert [in Long Covid or ME]? The only thing he is an expert in is his own experience, in which he worryingly confused a common natural recovery from time limited post viral fatigue - confused that with a spectacular recovery from LC/ME (recovery, which according to him, he created only by his own mind.)



Jeez - Am I sick to the back teeth of Born Again, Evangelical, Bandwagon Jumping Doctors -
After decades of them Sneering at patients who did meditation/mindfulness, or yoga etc -

Now the Medical Profession (well not all, but too many of 'em), now think They, Themselves, and Only Them, discovered meditation (mindfulness), yoga, NLP, visualisation, diverse mind methods etc etc.
And that it is their duty to introduce the clueless, meditation/yoga ignorant, mind method-resistant idiot patients to all of that - to bring the 'sceptical' patients 'To the Light'.

Yet for decades Drs had only sneered at patients who told them they did meditation or yoga etc, and had done for decades.

A Review of Mindfulness research - 2017

'Is mindfulness research methodology improving over time? A systematic review'

Is mindfulness research methodology improving over time? A systematic review

Background Despite an exponential growth in research on mindfulness-based interventions, the body of scientific evidence supporting these treatments has been criticized for being of poor methodological quality. Objectives The current systematic review examined the extent to which mindfulness...

journals.plos.org

'For the design feature most often emphasized in criticisms of mindfulness research–the lack of active control conditions–no increases were detected, and the odds ratios reflecting this effect size were quite small (ORs = 1.06 to 1.09). This is unfortunate, given comparisons with other active therapies are essential for addressing the relative efficacy of mindfulness treatments. Similarly, there was no evidence that newer studies are more likely to include follow-up assessment (ORs = 1.04 to 1.08), a second key design feature of establishing the efficacy of mindfulness interventions.

In some ways, these results are discouraging. Considerable scientific efforts (and financial resources) have been spent conducting research on mindfulness (see the exponential growth of publications in this area) [32], yet the body of literature is, on average, not becoming more rigorous with time. This fact suggests Bishop’s (2002) critique of this area as “rife with methodological problems” (p. 71) [10] remains valid over a decade later.'

.

 

[Ash]

Of course 'prescribing' a mindfulness course is another means for Drs to pass the patient along/pass the buck, away from them, confident that they have 'done something'.

I wasn't clear above, I was by intention miserably agreeing with you. About all of it.

....only I forgot to add the relevant emoji because you know.

 

[rvallee]

A Review of Mindfulness research - 2017

'Is mindfulness research methodology improving over time? A systematic review'

A 2026 update on that would be pretty short and easy to put together. It has, in fact, gotten significantly worse, it's the only way to keep the gravy trolley looping around the track. Which is, clearly, the only goal. The ideology must perpetuate itself, or else the giant sunk cost of tens of millions of sacrifices would have to be acknowledged.

And beyond the research, even the claims have gotten more outlandish, centred mainly on hope and belief, although that's mostly a function of the research being so poor and nothing actually being confirmed, but current research is exactly the same as 3+ decades ago so it doesn't change much.

Long Covid will have instead served as a boon to the ideology, a sign of broken systems. Not fundamentally different to how rising oil prices are leading some to commit to them even further, even though renewable energy has gotten cheaper, and can't be stopped at geopolitical choke points. Humans are so damn weird.

 

[Arnie Pye]

Oh yeah, like back in the days where being a vegetarian was suspicious and not normal, church halls didn't allow yoga and yogurt was only from the health food store.

I remember as a child that olive oil was available from pharmacies [And it came in very small bottles], not from supermarkets. It's main use in my family was to get rid of excess ear wax.

 

[MrMagoo]

I remember as a child that olive oil was available from pharmacies [And it came in very small bottles], not from supermarkets. It's main use in my family was to get rid of excess ear wax.

Yes!

 

[Peter T]

I remember as a child that olive oil was available from pharmacies [And it came in very small bottles], not from supermarkets. It's main use in my family was to get rid of excess ear wax.

Here in the UK I definitely remember the government paying people to collect rose hips every year and I think I remember the government giving out rose syrup for children. I am not certain about the latter as my great aunt kept rose hip syrup for her great niece and nephews long after the government stopping giving it out for free.

 

[MrMagoo]

Here in the UK I definitely remember the government paying people to collect rose hips every year and I think I remember the government giving out rose syrup for children. I am not certain about the latter as my great aunt kept rose hip syrup for her great niece and nephews long after the government stopping giving it out for free.

I absolutely loved Rose Hip Syrup as a toddler, I can still taste it! It was a manufactured one though, probably cow&gate or whoever made baby foods, it was always given to small kids. You would definitely be able to pick up a small bottle of it with your tiny olive oil from the chemist. And a bottle of Black Magic if you had a cough.

I think it was mainly sugar (although the taste was tart) so they stopped making it. I did have a bad tooth by age 4…

And there’s as much chance of those ingredients curing ME as whatever Garner is promoting.